


Reconnecting?

by MerMagicAnaLily



Series: AM Adulthood [4]
Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mentions of conversion therapy, Mentions of getting kicked out, TW Unaccepting past, Transphobia, trans!marty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-15 22:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21025820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerMagicAnaLily/pseuds/MerMagicAnaLily
Summary: It had been years since Marty saw his dead name in person. It always lingered in the back of his mind, no matter how many times he tried to shut it up. It was a name he got scrubbed from most of his documents successfully, except one...one that he had put off for a while.His Brazilian passport stared up at him, a young version of himself looked up, but not a version of himself he recognized anymore. A distant memory of long brown curls and a dress his birth mother called “a coisa mais lindinha do mundo.” He hated it, but Buffy wanted to spend spring break in Brazil, and he needed his passport renewed. He sucked it up and grabbed the passport and shoved it into his bag with his birth certificate, his citizenship documents, his name change document, and just about every single thing he could think of. He wanted to get in and out of the Brazilian consulate as fast as possible.Of course that was an oxymoron in it of itself, but he wanted to try before Brazilian politics got even more homophobic and transphobic than they already were. A very real fear for Brazilians at the moment.





	Reconnecting?

**Author's Note:**

> Character of Juliana belongs originally to Dumb-Binch-Juice on Tumblr (though this is a very very different version of her!!!)  
Read tags before continuing.

It had been years since Marty saw his dead name in person. It always lingered in the back of his mind, no matter how many times he tried to shut it up. It was a name he got scrubbed from most of his documents successfully, except one...one that he had put off for a while. 

His Brazilian passport stared up at him, a young version of himself looked up, but not a version of himself he recognized anymore. A distant memory of long brown curls and a dress his birth mother called “a coisa mais lindinha do mundo.” He hated it, but Buffy wanted to spend spring break in Brazil, and he needed his passport renewed. He sucked it up and grabbed the passport and shoved it into his bag with his birth certificate, his citizenship documents, his name change document, and just about every single thing he could think of. He wanted to get in and out of the Brazilian consulate as fast as possible. 

Of course that was an oxymoron in it of itself, but he wanted to try before Brazilian politics got even more homophobic and transphobic than they already were. A very real fear for Brazilians at the moment. 

“You sure you don’t want me with you?” Buffy asked, cleaning up after breakfast. 

“You’ve got classes,” he said, kissing her cheek. “And you shouldn’t miss too many of them.”

“I haven’t missed a single one.” 

“And that’s why you’re the top of your class,” he said, kissing her cheek again. “I’ll text you updates and once I’m finished, I’ll buy the tickets for us.”

“I can’t wait to see your cultural homeland.”

“You’ve seen Shadyside,” he teased, but smiled. “We’ll have fun in São Paulo, I promise.”

She smiled and kissed him watching him walk out the door. “Love you.”

“Love you too.” He locked the door behind him and went to his car, starting the way-too-long drive to the consulate. He planned to spend the whole day there because Brazilian government systems were not known for their speed. 

Once he got there an hour and a half later, he checked in and sat down, popping in his headphones and playing on his phone, keeping an eye on the screen announcing the next person to be helped. 

He was there for about forty-five minutes when another person came into the consulate and his blood ran cold.

____________________

_ “Irmazinha...you need to stop testing them,” Juliana said, brushing out Marty’s long hair. “They’re getting tired of your tomboy phase. You refuse to wear dresses...you tried cutting your own hair…” _

_ “I don’t like it long,” he mumbled, curling up. “I just want to go and chop it all off…” _

_ “You’re trying to look like a boy.” _

_ “...Maybe I want to be a boy…” he said softly. Juliana was quiet, looking down.  _

_ “You better not let mãmae and papai hear that…” she said. “They’ll be angry.” _

_ ____________________ _

Marty grabbed his things and went to a seat all the way in the back, putting up his hood and trying to sink into the chair as low as possible. He didn’t want his birth sister to see him. She probably wouldn’t even recognize him, since he ran away and them almost immediately got adopted by the Kippens. Amber was his sister...not her...not Juliana. 

Too many times, he thought he could depend on her, which is why it always cut him deeper when she didn’t. She was his sister. She was supposed to be his ally against the world, the opponent who secretly helped him win, the one who would always stick by him. She wasn’t that when dealing with their parents growing up. She never took his side. Always theirs. 

Amber took his side. Amber would spend hours with him whenever he had nightmares about the place he used to call home. She would always take him out to a haircut whenever they had a little extra money, and when they didn’t she was the one who begged Bex to give him free haircuts in exchange for her helping out with cleaning or sliding some extra baby taters Andi’s way. 

T.J. was his real brother, beating up any bullies who dared say that Marty was wrong for being who he was, for always putting up a protective wall, for sharing all of his “boy clothes” with Marty. T.J. wasn’t the emotional one, far from it. T.J. only started getting in tune with his emotions when he started dating Cyrus, but he was the one that taught Marty how “boys will be boys” while Amber swiftly corrected the two, making sure they always respected women. 

They were his siblings, his real siblings. Juliana lost that title a long time ago. 

____________________

_ “Você cortou o seu cabelo?! O que passou por a sua cabeça? Ta querendo me matar de horror?!” Marty’s mother shouted at him, looking at all of the hair all over the bathroom floor. Marty meanwhile was looking at himself in the mirror with a bit of an air of victory. His hair was choppy, and a weed whacker would have given him a better look, but it was his. It was short, and he could feel a weight off his shoulder, a literal weight. _

_ “Eu estou tão, tão brava com você, nem dá para imaginar!” She kept shouting. In his head, Marty knew that his mother losing her voice from screaming, hell, even being grounded for the rest of his life would be worth it. It was his moment of freedom as a ten year old.  _

_ Finally, she calmed down a little bit, and looked at him disappointed. “Juliana, walk your sister to the hairdresser down the block,” she said. “Tell them to give her a proper pixie cut.” _

_ He left with her, looking down as the two walked over. She was only four years older than him, but she was now allowed to explore the city alone if she wanted to, and he knew his mother sent him with her to prevent from yelling at him again as she cleaned up the hair on the floor.  _

_ They walked in silence at first, then Juliana spoke up. “Still with the whole tomboy thing?” _

_ “It’s not a tomboy thing,” he sighed. “You don’t understand.” _

_ “You don’t tell me.” _

_ “I don’t know what I can tell...let’s just get my hair cut…”  _

_ ___________________ _

“Number 20354,” The automated voice called out, and Marty quickly got up and went to the window directed, pulling out all of his documents and placing them in front of the person at the desk. 

“So...why didn’t you renew your passport earlier?”

“I...I’ve been putting it off...especially while my name change documents were being processed…”

“What’s the old name?”

Marty bit his lip and sighed. It was only to find records, not to dead name him or hurt him, he reminded himself. “Maria Rafaela Sousa Festeiro.”

The lady at the counter did a double take and immediately understood. “And your new preferred...legal name?”

He sighed. “Martin Rodrigo Sousa Kippen.”

“So that’s your new name?” A voice behind him said and he froze before slowly turning around. “No wonder I had a hard time finding you...I only knew that first part from when you wrote it on your notebooks.” 

“What are you doing Juliana?” 

“Filing Vovô Ica’s will,” she said. “He’s...not doing good. Asks about you.” 

“He’s not asking about me...he doesn’t even know me,” he said. He turned to the person at the window. “Do you need anything else from me?”

“No, just...you can come back in three hours for the next stages. Feel free to leave the building, but don’t forget your number and sign up for text alerts.” 

“Got it, thanks,” he said, grabbing his things and signing up for the alerts before going through the doors. 

“Mari-Martin! Wait!”

_______________________

_ “You’re disgracing your family!” Marty heard his father shout over him. “We spent all that money on that camp and you’re going out to school, having your friends call you some dumb name, calling you a boy!” _

_ His parents stood in front of him, blocking him into a corner, and Juliana was sitting in a chair in the far side of the room, looking down at her feet, curled up into a ball.  _

_ “I’m not going by Maria anymore,” he said. “It’s...not right.” _

_ “What’s not right is you going out here, pretending you’re a boy when God made you a girl! What will the family think?!” _

_ “I don’t care what they think!” Marty said. “I just want to feel like myself, and these dresses and being called a girl, it feels wrong! I just know it! Okay? I know it!” _

_ “Maria, you can either cut this nonsense, apologize to everyone you lied to and beg forgiveness from God for defying him,” he said. “Or you can leave now. And once you’re out the door, that’s it.” _

_ Marty couldn’t believe it, he looked over at Juliana, who put her head in her lap, refusing to look up and see what was happening. “Then I guess I’ll go pack my things.” _

_ His parents looked at him shocked. “One hour.” _

_ He tried not to show the hurt in his face. “Just remember it’s illegal to destroy official government documents,” he said getting up.  _

_ “Find an adult and you know which bank it’s in,” his father said, sitting down and refusing to look at him. Marty started going upstairs to start packing his things, looking over at Juliana for one second. She didn’t look back.  _

_ ______________________ _

“What do you want?”

“You didn’t keep our name…”

“Why would I?” He asked. “You kicked me out. All of you. You denied me over and over, and I only kept Sousa because Tia Sueli was the only one that was kind to me during my ‘tomboy’ phase,” he said. 

“Martin…”

“Marty, that’s what everyone calls me,” he said. “Though you probably want to call me something else,” he spat. “The same name people used while they abandoned me.”

“I just...I never wanted to hurt you,” she said, tearing up. 

“You never wanted to hurt me?” He asked, not even caring that they were in an empty, but echoey hallway of the consulate. “You don’t think I got hurt because you denied me? You never stuck up for me!” He said. “When I needed you most! I was kicked out of my house! I was homeless for two weeks as a thirteen year old and lucked out that a blonde waitress who saw me eat out of a dumpster took me home with her! That she had an accepting and loving family that took me! That’s why I’m a Kippen now, because they didn't everything you couldn’t do.”

“I was seventeen Marty! Just because I wasn’t as young as you doesn’t mean I wasn’t young!” She said. “I didn’t know what was right or wrong! I had no clue what the hell I was doing. I didn’t know what trans was! I just wanted you to stop getting in trouble with our parents.”

“Your parents,” he said. “They’re not my family anymore.”

“Please...Marty...Can I ask for a second chance. If not as your sister, then as a friend? An acquaintance? Someone from your childhood?” She said. “I want to get to know my brother…”

He looked down. “Not right now,” he said. “I just remember the girl who cried in the corner instead of sticking up for her family.”

“I cried because I was scared too,” she said. “If it’s selfish and wrong, I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to be kicked out too…”

“You left me to fend for myself! I was eating out of fast food dumpsters! I was dealing with flashbacks to a conversion therapy camp! You didn’t even object to that!”

“I didn’t know what that was! I was just told it was a special camp to help kids like you!” She was crying openly. “I’m so sorry...I understand if you can never forgive me…” she said, crying. 

Marty felt conflicted, wondering if he could forgive her, after all those years. Could she really just, not have known all those years? Or was she purposefully ignorant of all the years he went through. “Forgiving you won’t be easy,” he said. “There’s too much that happened.”

“Please...let me try…” she said. “I thought about you leaving every day since that day…”

“Yeah, mourning your little sister,” he spat. 

“Mourning the one person who understood me,” she said. “Even if that person was my brother instead of my sister. I missed  _ you.”  _

He sighed. “I don’t know if I can believe you.” He started walking away.

“Mar..please...wait!”

“You weren’t just the girl who cried in the corner,” he said. 

_____________________

_ He was packing when Juliana came in, sniffling. “Why did you say that?” _

_ “Why did I say what?” _

_ “That you want to be a boy,” she said. “I told you that mãmae and papai wouldn’t understand...I begged you not to say anything…” _

_ “Jujuba…you don’t understand,” he sighed. _

_ “Do you really hate us that much?”  _

_ Marty stopped what he was doing and looked at her. “What? How...how can you think that?”  _

_ “Why else would you do all this Mar?” _

_ “I need to be myself...you don’t understand what it’s like living a lie every single day, no matter what, always pretend to feel like Maria when inside there’s a little boy screaming that it’s wrong, to stop telling him to shut up!” _

_ “If you did you wouldn’t have to leave.” _

_ Marty stumbled back hearing that. How could she...she was his sister...she was supposed to love him… _

_ “Goodbye Jujuba.” _

_ _____________________ _

“You wanted me to shut up and stay, to stay as your little sister. You were the one I cried over the hardest. You were supposed to be my ally against our parents.”

“Mar...there’s a whole culture behind it...you don’t understand what it’s like...as full Brazilians…”

“Sou o mesmo tipo de Brasileiro que você Ju. Só porque não falo português todo segundo que estou em casa, que estava naquela casa com a mamãe e papai, não quer dizer que não tenho orgulho de quem eu sou,” he said. “You just don’t agree in who I am for me to be proud of.”

She was quiet, looking down. “I want to understand…”

He looked down. “If you friend me on Facebook...I won’t message you or tag you in anything...but I won’t reject it for now,” he said. “You know my name now.”

He looked up at her to see her quiet. “Mar...Marty…”

“Don’t follow me around,” he said. “I just...I’m happy now. I’ve got friends...a family...a girlfriend...and I’ve got surgeries I wanted done and others scheduled.”

“You don’t want to be a Festeiro anymore.”

“The Festeiros didn’t want me anymore. The Kippens loved me and accepted me. And...I’m better this way.”

He walked out, knowing she didn’t follow him this time and went to grab a sandwich at Subway. He cracked open the door for them to reconnect one day, and maybe he would take her up on it, come back to his sister...but not now. Now, he just wanted his passport to be accurate so he could take his beautiful girlfriend on vacation. 


End file.
